Steve Reich

Composer

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  Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for 2008, Steve Reich has been called “Americas greatest living composer.” (The Village VOICE), “...the most original musical thinker of our time” (The New Yorker) and “...among the great composers of the century” (New York Times).

  His music has been influential to composers and mainstream musicians all over the world. He is a leading pioneer of Minimalism, having in his youth broken away from the “establishment” that was serialism. His music is known for steady pulse, repetition, and a fascination with canons; it combines rigorous structures with propulsive rhythms and seductive instrumental colour. It also embraces harmonies of non-Western and American vernacular music (especially jazz). His studies have included the Gamelan, African drumming (at the University of Ghana), and traditional forms of chanting the Hebrew scriptures.

  Different Trains and Music for 18 Musicians have each earned him GRAMMY awards, and his “documentary video opera” works - The Cave and Three Tales, done in collaboration with video artist Beryl Korot - have pushed the boundaries of the operatic medium. Over the years his music has significantly grown both in expanded harmonies and instrumentation, resulting in a Pulitzer Prize for his 2007 composition, Double Sextet.

  Steve Reich is published by Boosey & Hawkes.

  Steve Reich is represented by Rayfield Allied worldwide (exc. North America).
  This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced.

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• Steve Reich’s List of Compositions

  • List of Compositions - Boosey & Hawkes

  • List of Compositions - Universal Edition

  Steve Reich’s Discography

  • Discography

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  • 
    Photographer Credit: Jeffrey Herman

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    Photographer Credit: Wonge Bergmann

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